Some really angsty words

Just so you'll click

No one has ever accused me of planning ahead. This generally flexible, agreeable, in-the-moment nature has allowed me to endure 14 moves in the first 15 years of marriage, and countless unplanned conversations with friends. It also has incredible costs and downsides, as anyone who knows me can attest. I’m very good at losing my phone and and my to-do list, which was recovered yesterday from the post office. I’m currently unaware about the whereabouts of said phone, so if you cannot reach me, try e-mail.

Since I jumped into the world of Writing for an Online Audience, my not-planning-ahead-nature means that I’m thinking daily about what I should Write for my Online Audience. And that exhausts my spirit and therefore my creativity. Now, I don’t want to sound belly-achy and melodramatic, although I am both of those things at times. When you’re the descendent of pioneers and in the Christian faith, complaining is akin to heresy. So I’m not complaining…I’m explaining.

I have some Very-Interesting-to-Me next writing project ideas. But, in order to give myself to them, I need to turn off my does-anyone-out-there-who-reads-these-articles-I-write-care switch. Also, I’m not lying when I say I don’t know how many days I have on this earth. No one knows their true expiration date. I could die without a traditional book contract, and will certainly do so if I need to acquire 25,000 followers to get one. I see what garners the thousands of likes on the internet, and I have neither a funny cat to exploit nor the disposition to shake my “money-maker” to the unknown deeply disturbed common man.

So, I’m trying out something that more efficient people do every day. I’m planning ahead. Until July 2026, I will “schedule” an article or poem to arrive in your inbox every Monday morning at 6:00 a.m. and I will therefore not be writing “to” the news cycle. There’s too much darn terrible news in the world every day, daring me to step out of my agency and my contextualized, embodied life and feel terrible about true suffering in other parts of the world. I assert that we were not designed to know as much as we know about everywhere. I want to become more aware of what is right in front of me. I have learned the cryptic phrase from St. Isaac the Syrian, “Make peace within yourself, and heaven and earth will make peace with you.” For me, that means ignoring a lot of what I cannot change, in order to be awake to what I can become- a fresh breath of peaceful air, breathed into being again and again by Holy Breath.

I’m sorry that I can’t write an update letter without becoming deeply soulful. It’s not very becoming, but it’s what I got. I just want to inform you that I’m not a hot-take writer and if you’re wondering, “why isn’t Joy writing about this terrible tragedy” it’s because I’m toiling away at the writing that I hope is more life-giving than anything I could offer for a particular moment in our ragged earth.

Mary Oliver has a great poem that I will leave you with. And if you are given to prayer, I would take your prayers for my next projects. I have many pages of ideas and mulling, but I do not know where they are yet going.

Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.